A Blind Squirrel

Technically it means even if people are ineffective or misguided, sometimes they can still find fortune just by being lucky.

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I’ll do it one better: I’d rather be lucky than good. Being good is for saps.*

*Sap (noun) – a foolish, gullible person who believes it’s better to be good than lucky.

I’m not particularly good at anything. I’m competent – debatable, of course – at a number of things but not proficient enough in any of them to actually consider myself good.

I’m competent at running, having been at it every day since 1978. At one time I was competent in basketball. I once made 99 free throws in a row trying out for my high school team although the coach only saw me shoot the one I missed – the first of said 100 – and golf. I had a one handicap when I was 17 but got kicked off the high school team my senior year because my hair was too long.

I can write my way out of a paper bag. I can still do math problems in my head – just not as fast as before, sort of like my running.

Which leads me back to where I began: I’d rather be lucky than good. If you’re good you can only be good; what you get is what you’ve come to expect.

But if you’re simply competent—like me—you have a chance at some good, old-fashioned dumb luck every now and then. Then the ‘good’ becomes special!

A conservative guestimate is I’ve played over 3,000 rounds (54,000 holes) of golf in my lifetime. Assuming four par three holes for every 18 holes, I played 12,000 par threes and had a hole in one on one of them. It was the 175-yard fifth hole at the Mayport Naval Station Golf Course in Mayport, Fla. The fact I made a hole in one wasn’t particularly noteworthy, as the odds of a golfer like me of making a hole in one in their lifetime was one in 12,500. Rather, the fact I actually hit a three-iron worth a darn was absolutely mind-boggling.

I bowled quite a bit in college. One year I “tried out” for the bowling team simply because I could bowl 30 games for free. Surprisingly I averaged 188 for those 30 games and made the team. I never met the coach, never participated in a formal practice or competition and never received a uniform – collegiate bowlers have uniforms, right? But that doesn’t stop me from saying I “played” collegiate sports at the University of Florida. Except when I say it I leave out the air quotes.

I started dating Cindy when we were both seniors in high school. She seemed impressed I wanted to be a lawyer and drive a Mercedes after graduating from college, which was true until I became a freshman at the University of Florida and discovered – by my count – every single freshman in my class wanted to be a lawyer, too. I immediately changed my major to “undecided.” Today I work for a company that makes really cool sports cars, one of which I am allowed to drive. I won’t mention the company but I will tell you it’s the car all Mercedes want to be when they grow up.

Cindy and I married after we graduated from Florida. Aside from the fact that she has never been on time once in her life and needs 10 minutes or more to relate a story that could be told in well under 30 seconds, she’s just about perfect.

Just more proof that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.

I should know. I’m one of them.

Scott Ludwig lives, runs and writes in Senoia with his wife Cindy, three cats and never enough visits from his grandson Krischan. He can be reached at magicludwig1@comcast.net

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